As we approach the new year, the excitement for filmmaker Leigh Whannell’s new take on the Wolf Man is mounting, and Universal surely knows it. They’ve just released a behind the scenes sneak peek at the film, featuring stars Christopher Abbott and Julia Gardner, as well as Whannell himself, breaking down the making of the film and how it’s different from the onslaught of other monster movies we’ve seen in the last few years.
In the featurette, Whannell speaks about wanting to take a new approach to werewolf films, which have been done a hundred times over since Lon Chaney Jr. first took up the mantle in 1941. He compares the feeling of being isolated as Abbott’s young father turns into a grotesque monster to the feelings of isolation we all experienced collectively during the pandemic:
“A wolf man story is about infection and transformation, so after the last few years of turmoil that the world has been in, the themes of isolation and dread and anxiety were naturally coming out in the script,” he says. “This film is a tribute to the ‘80s movies I loved growing up…like John Carpenter’s The Thing, David Cronenberg’s The Fly. I just wanted it to be an aural assault.”
This isn’t the first time Universal has remade their original 1941 film featuring some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. They also produced The Wolfman in 2010, featuring Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, and Hugo Weaving, which was a more straightforward remake of the iconic story, though no less beloved today. Wolf Man, however, will be Whannell’s second time tackling an iconic universal monster, after his much lauded take on The Invisible Man hit screens in 2020.
Wolf Man also stars Sam Jaeger, Ben Prendergast, Zac Chandler, Beatriz Romilly, and Milo Cawthorne, with a script from Whannell & Corbett Tuck. The film is produced by Jason Blum and Ryan Gosling (who was originally set to star in the film), with executive producers Whannell, Beatriz Sequeira, Mel Turner and Ken Kao.
Wolf Man hits theaters on January 17, 2025. Check out the new featurette below:
